Managing BPII without meds?

I have only been seeing my psychologist for 4 months, and to date we have both decided to try behavioral therapy w/o any medication. I'm terrified of going FLAT from taking anything, and truthfully would be completely lost without having any highs - these have always been what I have relied on, as if my over productivity, sociability and energy can somehow cancel out the bad person underneith.

If anyone has any thoughts/ experience handling BPII without medication, I would truely appreciate hearing your thoughts. I appreciate forums such as this one as I am for once in my life not feeling like I am the only one in the world...

"Knowing" you have BPII does not mean that you are going to be able to "control" the mood swings. Having this sudden "ephiphany" about one's actions may "control" them for a little while but it won't last long. You have already admitted and seen for yourself that your "mania's" have disasterious consequences. Are you willing to risk another complete set back on the "maybe side effect" of medications you haven't even tried yet?

Why am I saying it like this? Well, I "self-medicated" for years!! Meaning marijuana, drinking, avoiding, ignoring, leading one life and feeling like shit inside cause it was a lie and it took more and more to hide it from everyone (especially myself).

"Hey I have BPII and that is why I F*&% up a lot!!" Yes, it is an explaination but it won't explain away everything forever if you know what I mean.

Don't get me wrong, behavior therapy is wonderful but it has been proven time and time again that for those with bi-polar need a combination of both medication and therapy (behavioral and phycological in-depth).

I am sorry to say but it isn't going to matter how hard you "try" to make yourself better, you cannot change your brain chemistry with out medical help. Its like a person with a brain tumor......they can't "think" it away. Its there and it will just get bigger and bigger and effect your life more and more.

I am going to tell you something else. I know someone that was diagnosed at a very early age that she had bi-polar. She tried to just pretend that she had control of it. You know what? At 20 years old, she killed herself. She wouldn't take the meds the doctors gave her and she died in such a state of depression...........no one could save her.

It was my baby sister. She did what your doing and it back fired on her so badly and I lost my best bud in the world because she fell into depression so fast she couldn't stop it. I am not saying that will happen to you but do you really want to take that chance????

I went without meds till I came to the point where I lost it all. My home, my marriage, my kids, my family and friends. I was given a second chance but I don't think I would be here if it wasn't for the medication and therapy I have received.

No medication isn't perfect. there is a lot of adjusting involved because not everyones chemistry is the same.

Please think about your decision carefully and maybe get a second opinion on the matter is all I am trying to say.

Welcome, and thanks for your post!

Has your doctor ever suggested to you that the use or abuse of alcohol may cause you to have symptoms of BPII?

Alcohol abuse and drug abuse may propel you into mood swings (in your case perhaps more depression than mania) which look very much like those of bipolar disorder.

You will in any case have a better chance to treat your BPII if you stop using alcohol. I have done so and I manage my disease without medication.

While I took the meds at the start of recovery, they DID give me enough relief from the pain and chaos to begin the therapy part of my recovery; but soon I began to rapid cycle. Rapid cycling is part of the profile of many of us who are dual diagnosed, and many of our symptoms and mental anguish may actually increase with long term use of psychotropic meds or mood modifiers.

If nothing else, you may say that the meds are less effective and less predictable while you are using alcohol or street drugs.

Dual Diagnosis within the context of these forums means a diagnosis of bipolar (I or II) with addiction/alcoholism/drug abuse.

Please keep coming back!

With kindest regards,

Your new friend Jim

I can relate to you so much. I felt the same way about meds.

I thought the meds would keep me from being me , or make me shuffle or not be able to feel. I also thought the doctos were trying to trap me or label me.

I tried to manage my bipolar without meds for 2o yrs.

I tried to manage my alcaholism for 20 yrs by myself for 20 yrs also.

I have been in therapy since I was 14. I was fine when I self medicated until the alcahol and drugs stopped working, and then the relationships stopped working. I was always pinning it on my parenting or on people at work or my parents or my friends. I went to counseling and thought if, I worked through my issues I would be okay and move on, but I still had my same issues program , no program, therapy, or no therapy , man , or no man. No matter the circumstances. I finally got sober, and the symptoms would come and go no matter what I did. In fact everytime I got sober, I would be nuts.I finally figure out it was me, and my alcaholism, and my bipolar.

So, anyway, When I got sober this time they diagnosed me Bipolar and put me on meds, and didn't educate me on my disorder, or the meds, so, I did what I thought was best, I went off the meds. I again lived in chaos for the next 5 yrs. I had a lot of outside support and friends to stay sober, but, at about 5 yrs sober, after trying to get a job, raise 4 kids, and build a life, and rapid cycling every 3 months, I started cycling every week, and getting suicidal, and losing it.

Like you, 5mos ago, I got help. I was diagnosed, again.

I was scared , and was afraid everyone was tryng to trap me!!LOL I was scared of the meds, and self concious, and paranoid about anyone knowing, I was bipolar. Its gotten a whole lot better, but, it was a wierd experience.

So, anyway, I got on meds, got a better pdoc, got the right meds combo, the right therapist, and now, I am balanced and life is finally calmer, more tolerable, and am a better person to everyone. The meds aren't perfect. I still cycle, but not as often and not as extreme. They also have enabled me to beable to go through counceling easier. So, anyway I hope this helps.

Godbless, Gypsy

I certainly do agree that I self medicate with alcohol on occasion, again I'm not sure if it's on the way up or on the way down that I'm drawn to it. Sometimes I won't drink for awhile, not because I consciously choose not to, I just don't get around to it. Other times I am completely happy sipping one glass of wine with my fiance in front of a fire, and don't need any more. Then there are the times that I can drink and drink without ever hitting a satisfaction mark, this is when I scare myself and others. I'm either trying to dull something or feel like drinking more will increase the high further - which of course it doesn't.

I know that if...well, WHEN...I do have to go the meds route I will have to try out different types and combinations until I get it right. I'm just new to having a name for my jagged thoughts and deciding to go on medication just seems to make it so FINAL somehow that I will need to deal with this forever - and never "grow out of it". I always dreamed that one day it would just go away - at 31 still no luck Deep down I'm also a little scared that maybe there won't be anything out there that I can take that will WORK. That would be the worst thing of all. I'm great with "what-ifs", wonderful story-teller, and nightmare teller, in my head.

Thank you all so much for your quick responses. I can't express how much it means to me to have found a forum to really say how I feel and meet others that are so willing to share their own experiences and help me learn what this is all about.

How, I know so much what you are experiencing.lol.

Welcome to the world of discovering bipolar. But, remember it's not the end, and its not who you are. Its a disorder, like diabetes. The more informed you are the more choices you have. There are lots of info on other web sites on the symptoms, and management, and meds, and lots of people have it. It doesn't have to be a terrible thing. I take my meds to function better in the world.

I am a human being who has Bipolar. I am a human being who has opportunities to heal from other issues and have a better quality of life. Anyway, welcome and hope you hang out and enjoy your stay, God bless, Gypsy

I think we all have been (at one time or another) in your same situation as far as our "stand~off" with meds and the fear behind this disease.

this disease is all about fear for those of us that live with Bi-Polar. Fear of "crashing", fear of people judging us for it, the fear of our meds side effects, fear of how much it will change our life........ect.

But when all is said and done, I am more fearful of hurting those I love more then anything else now. Because of my lack of knowledge and diagnosis, because of my disease, I hurt the ones that I love and cherish the most. And I NEVER want that to happen again. I'll do what ever it takes to have some kind of normal leverage in my life. For myself and for my precious children.

I was "cursed" from birth. My mother has paranoid shcophrina (man I can't spell it), my father had bi-polar, PTSD, BPD, OCD, and a lot of other shit from his service in Vietnam, my brother has serious anger issues, my baby sister had bi-polar. My great grandmother was committed to a mental hospital and died there cause she tried to kill her children with an ax (she said they were trying to poison her). By genetics, I was doomed you could say.

But I have the power to take back some of the control here. To be honest with my therapists and those working with me, about how I am feeling.

Perhaps a small suggestion...........

I keep track of how I am feeling day to day. I write down in a journal so I can keep track of my rapid-cycling, any changes or patterns in my lifestyle and meds. I give them to my therapist to read. I write better then I talk. When I get to therapy, its hard to say what I want to so writing it is easier for me. For some people, it works out to do this.

I hope that in the future, these issues will become more and more addressed for you.

I won't lie to you. There are times I miss the "social-high life" I use to have on my mania's. At those times, i was a social butterfly. The life of the party, the "joker" of the group. I miss it but don't regret my decision to go on meds, quit drinking, and stay clean. Its worth it. I am worth it and so are my children. I don't want to leave legacy behind of broken hearts and twisted memories. I don't want to be another statistic in the long line of messed up bi-polars that didn't get help and wasted there life away. I don't take my second chance lightly.

I wish you the best of luck Jewel20. Your worth the chance don't you think............

gypsy

Hi Irishdana33 & Gypsy,

I'm sorry to hear that you have had such a background Irishdana, although I certainly wouldn't agree with you that you were doomed. It sounds as if you have put a lot of time and effort into finding out what does and doesn't work for you. I guess anyone with an illness has the choice of giving into it or finding a way to get their life back. I'm just in the preliminary stages of trying to understand it, so I'm no where near getting better - but I'm headed in that direction also. Doomed would have meant that you would have given up, whatever that would have been for you. Leaving your kids emotionally...or physically would have been giving up.

I love the idea of writing things down. I used to have a journal, but often hated reading through it because I had to see how my head was working, and sometimes it scared me. I need to get back to it, because you're right, sometimes it's just too hard to get it out when talking to someone no matter how much you want to - I know this frustrates my fiance, and it frustrates me when I feel he just doesn't understand. Like he should have superhuman powers and just KNOW...I need to remind myself regularly that he is on the outside looking in, and fortunately for him he doesn't live inside my head Strangely enough, I find it very simple to write how I feel on this forum, even though I know people will read it.

Great way to put it, "stand-off with meds". That's exactly how I feel.

Gypsy, you sound an awful lot like me I would love to hear more about you and your experiences.

I've been reading the posts here and have one thing I'd like to re-enforce that gypsy said about taking medication. Bi-polar is a chemical imbalance just like diabetes. Where diabetes deals with the pancreas and such, bi-polar is in the brain.

We require many chemicals which our body produces to maintain proper brain function. We already know caffeine does a number on the brain, but we know little about what other things can/and do to our brain functions. There are trace elements which are necessary in our diets which are in such small amounts when they are out of balance we can become unhinged or unbalanced. There are parts of our bodies which produce needed hormones and other chemicals that may not be functioning properly like the thyroid. Our body actually produces seretoinin re-uptake inhibitors which are necessary for everyday functions of the brain, but stress and illness deplete this and we recover even more slowly. This same producer of the SRI's has been know to be almost totally incapable to produce SRI's when a person has be subjected to severe, prolonged abuse (PTSD) or over stressed for too long.

Running on that wonderful manic energy with in our youth is so helpful in helping us achieve wondrous things, has an overall detrimental affect upon the rest of our lives. We actually burn out and lack the resilience to bounce back. We begin to loose our minds -literally.

The medications are welcomed by the informed and ready to help themselves bi-polars. They know that it is a way to help stabilize the imbalances before the damages are worse for our bodies, minds, and families.

Good luck on your journey!

Hugs!

msbimbo